For the umpteenth time John Redwood MP, a British Conservative Party politician according to Wikipedia, has sought to promote his second-hand, fourth-rate constitutional solution for England, but I wish he had not bothered!

John Redwood, Brit MP

alias Mr Spock and lover of Welsh anthems!

In a piece published by Kate Devlin in today’s HeraldScotlandonline entitled “Redwood calls for ban on Scottish MPs voting on English taxes”, allegedlyMr Redwood will argue that England must have her own parliament. Ms Devlin states that: “Mr Redwood will argue that the need for an English parliament is made more urgent by the pledge on taxes.” and that “He will say that English voters will not stand for Scottish MPs voting on English taxes that would not affect Scotland.” It would appear that there is more concern about taxes than England’s status (or lack of it) as a long established nation in her own right!

Scotland (and Wales) has a separate national parliament, with separate bill drafting facilities and a separate Executive, but our ‘friend’ John seems totally unconcerned about these factors. According to Ms Devlin, “Scottish MPs would be barred from the Westminster chamber on certain days of the week, under the proposals by John Redwood.” BIG DEAL! [Funny how Scots avoid referring to the ‘British Parliament’ preferring to use the word ‘Westminster’ instead! ‘Westminster’ carries overtones of being English and thus un-Scottish despite their over-representation there.]

Ms Devlin also reports: “Research by Tom Greatrex, the Labour MP for Rutherglen & Hamilton West, based on figures from the House of Commons Library, also highlighted the difficulty in identifying legislation which is exclusively English. “English only” votes would have affected fewer than a handful of bills in the last decade, his research found.” Yet another Scot poking his unwanted nose into England’s affairs! Oh the efforts Scots go to in their endless attempts to prevent England from having even a referendum on the matter of her own parliament.

Funny how no such ‘research’ was carried out prior to the referenda in Scotland (and Wales) in 1979 and 1998! It should really not need to be said that, devolved matters such as Education, Health, Social care, Transport etc would automatically entail “English only” votes in an English Parliament, because Scotland and Wales would be prevented from hanging on to England’s coat tails . . . but that would never do, would it!

If Scots (aided and abetted by Welsh) when in power over England had not operated double-standards in 1997-1998 but, instead, afforded England the national status they claimed for themselves, we would have been afforded a national referendum on the question of an English Parliament. However, they clearly operated on the basis of not asking a referendum question which would have yielded an answer they wished to avoid.

An English Parliament would not necessarily result in more MPs, but the reverse. The present Commons (and Lords) could be scaled down to (say) one tenth of their number, but all the numerous Scots, Welsh, Northern Irish and other non-English want to cling to their privileged positions, and so they penalise England.